Revenge of the Return of *Homosexuals are Gay* Reloaded

Certain things in life when thought about or seen are disgusting from a persons POV, for example if you watch Fear Factor, some of the stuff they need to eat to win the $50,000 is disgusting.

Personally I wouldn't do it, and if they do it it's none of my business, BUT from my point of view IT IS STILL DISGUSTING.

Your not going to change people minds if they feel something is so gross that it gives them the "shivers". That is free choice too.

Both sides need to get equal free choice on this matter.

 

McCartney, I never suggested nor implied that the actions of Dirkhising's killers represented all or even a significant proportion of the homosexual community. I defy you to point to a sentence or paragraph where I do, or I may conclude that you're trying to draw the worst possible conclusion in order to demonize the opposition.


It would not surprise me if that was indeed your intent. After all, you wrote in the last thread, "You can teach your children what you believe, but don't be surprised if God tests your faith by blessing you with a gay son." What I wrote in response bears repeating.

I've given more thought to the reason McCartney made the comment to begin with, and I think I now understand: he thinks that the situation would create some irreconilable conflict between one's love for his child and one's hatred of gays.

I don't hate gays, but McCartney thinks I do.

I think quite a few of you assume the worst of the opposition: YOU EARNESTLY BELIEVE THAT THOSE WHO DON'T AGREE WITH YOU 100 PERCENT ARE HATEFUL HOMOPHOBES.

Or am I reading too much into what you write?


Well, I rearead that post to see if I misunderstood, and then I read the rest of your post, which gave me pause. Yeah, you raise some interesting points, Heck, I'm sure that with enough therapy and treatment, gays can be made straight, but the point is, WHY OH WHY!?!?! Why not let them be gay?!? You arne't suggesting criminilizing homosexuality, so what's the point of that discussion? Who cares if they are born gay or choose to be gay?

For one thing -- and I mentioned this in my post, which you claim to have read -- there is quite a political advantage in being able to claim that homosexuality cannot be helped. The truth is, I'm asking questions like this because it only seems fair: if the dogmatic assertions of my side (such as the idea that heteroseuxal monogamy is normal and the ideal) are to be questioned, I should be free to question the dogmatic assertions of your side. And one of the biggest bits of dogma is that "gays can't help it."

For the sake of argument, I have been conceding that point and I may concede the point again in the future. But I want to know, is there any good reason to believe the assertion is true? Or do y'all just accept and assert what is politically expedient?


Before I continue, I'd like to add that your question, "why not let them be gay?!?" again needlessly assumes the worst. Before asking this and other unnecessary questions ("WHY OH WHY!?!?!"), maybe you should have asked whether I was suggesting that gays should be harrassed or otherwise compelled into becoming heterosexual. (FYI, I'm not.)

Once again, you're clearly assuming the worst, and this does not help the discussion.


But still, I can't believe no one called you out on the adoption thing, that's just plain bigotry, it's like saying that because black people proportionally commit more crimes we can't trust any black people ot adopt.

Actually, I believe the fact is that the locus of crime in the black community is in young, black males. Regardless, if it's the case that Group X commits a proportionally large number of violent crimes, that doesn't mean we should necessarily prohibit that group from adopting, but we should ask the question whether we should.

After all, what's more important? Avoiding the appearance of bigotry and political incorrectness or THE WELFARE OF THE CHILD? What's the point of an adoption program? To salve the self-esteem of grown-ups or to serve the best interests of children? It seems to me that you don't have your priorities straight.


Paul, certainly no single statistic tells a whole story, but I don't think it gives us reason to analyze the question of gay adoption more deeply.

And I'm not sure it matters whether child molestors consider themselves gay or straight. It comes down to how we define homosexuality. Is a homosexual anyone

 

I am not particularly inclined to believe that it's possible to draw meaningful conclusions about statistics comparing the two, which was actually part of my point. At any rate, I'm not sure about rapists, but I certainly think it appropriate to exlude child molestors from consideration on both sides of the spectrum, as they are plainly sexually deviant individuals.

-Paul

 

There have been a bunch of studies that have shown that pedophiles are NOT gay. Even if they desire young boys rather then young girls, they do not desire their same gender in the appropriate age bracket (therefore not being gay, just being a pedophile). Pedophilia is more about compliance, power and domination rather then desire to have sex with someone of the same gender.

Therefore the idea that gay parents are more likely to turn out to be pedophiles is plain wrong. It's not about gender and sexual preference as much as it is about a host of other things.

I'll see if I can find some studies, but I'm in the middle of my exam block. If I manage to track some reliable sources down then I'll be back after the 18th!

Kithera

 

Bubba_the_Genius, you are, to begin with, correct in saying that to take one anecdote concerning a gay person who tried to change and failed, and then to conclude that all homosexuality is choice-independent, is a logical fallacy. However, every single gay person I have ever come across maintains that it is not a matter of choice, but something inherent. Unless there are actually examples of people who tried to change their sexuality and succeeded in that endeavour, then the balance of probabilities is vastly against the view that it is possible. Or to put it another way, it seems clear that if 'reorientation' can happen at all, it can only happen in such a tiny proportion of cases as to make it useless in informing moral, legal, or social judgements about homosexuality.

The previous part of your post, I ought to point out, contains not one logical fallacy, but two. We have a general conclusion based on what really is just one anecdote--that gay couples are more likely to abuse children than straight couples (of course there are cases of homosexuals who abuse children, but there are also thousands of cases of heterosexuals who abuse children, so your point about that story fails completely). And we also have a 'false cause'--the assumption that the abuse had anything to do with homosexuality, or that gayness/straightness has any bearing upon likelihood to abuse children at all.

 

Bubba_the_Genius, you are, to begin with, correct in saying that to take one anecdote concerning a gay person who tried to change and failed, and then to conclude that all homosexuality is choice-independent, is a logical fallacy. However, every single gay person I have ever come across maintains that it is not a matter of choice, but something inherent. Unless there are actually examples of people who tried to change their sexuality and succeeded in that endeavour, then the balance of probabilities is vastly against the view that it is possible.

The "Ex-Gay" movement has frequently put forward a poster child every few years, but they have all become involved in a scandal or coverup, both proving that they hadn't changed.

Now they might try to argue that a "biased media" is only focusing on failures instead of successes, but that was their own doing: all the publicly known failures were figures that those organizations had put forward, first, using the way some of them lived beforehand as a one-size fits all expose of the "gay lifestyle," (rather than a reflection of how that individual lived), then used them to prove that change is possible, and then trying to either downplay the scandal as a brief moral fall, or pushing all the blame onto that person instead of acepting it as a reflection on the effectiveness of their "treatment."

Example #1: Kent Philpott and "Love in Action," Founded in the early seventies, Philpott attracted six gay men in less than a month after he started this ministry. At the end of that month, he put out a book called "The Third Sex," in which he claimed those men had changed their sexual orientation through prayer. None of them had changed yet, and they never subsequently changed either. They came forward against the book, but the damage was done.

Example #2: That book inspired two gay men, Gary Cooper and Michael Bussee, to found Exodus International, which, to this day, is the largest ex-gay organization in the country. The two men spent three years claiming that their organization had made them both straight. They then both left the organization, and came out publicly against it, after falling in love with each other.

Example #3: Wade Richards was an ex-gay poster boy, but later publicly admitted that the therapy hadn't worked.

Example #4: Michael Johnston appeared in "ex-gay" ads, saying that his mother had shown him the light, and helped him leave homosexuality, even though he was HIV+. However, he was later found to have been having clandestine, unprotected sexual encounters--without telling his partners he was positive. This was kept under wraps for quite a while to avoid negative publicity.

Example #5: John Paulk. He is also the most infamous. When the Religious Right started pushing for "Reparative Therapy" in 1998, Paul was their poster boy, since he had supposedly stopped having sex with men, and had married a woman (an ex-lesbian) and had children with her. However, she admitted in her own book that she was never a lesbian in the first place. Paulk himself was then caught in a Washinton D.C. gay bar, trying to pick up tricks.

Paulk wrote a book about what his life was like beforehand, when he was a drag queen having sex and doing drugs all the time. Those on the Right praise the book as a definitive account of the "gay lifestyle," when the truth is, Paul is far more representative and definitive of the ex-gay organizations. They claim to have numerous successes that aren't reported, even though the successes they report turn out to be failures. Many of them don't keep records on their patients, which is awfully convenient for them, as no one can confirm their claims of success.

The official position of the A.P.A. is that reparative therapy not only doesn't work, but can cause severe psychological harm--and they should no, since many of them have had to repair the damage done by those organizations.

As for a link between homosexuality and pedophilia, it's worth pointing out that the studies claiming to show such a link were fabricated in the 1980s

 

Kit said

There have been a bunch of studies that have shown that pedophiles are NOT gay. Even if they desire young boys rather then young girls, they do not desire their same gender in the appropriate age bracket (therefore not being gay, just being a pedophile). Pedophilia is more about compliance, power and domination rather then desire to have sex with someone of the same gender.

That sounds more like a coverup to me. NAMBLA used to be a pivotal part of GLAAD untill they were banished from all GLAAD literature and stuff about 10 years ago, but that used to be one of the biggest slams one could do against GLAAD was that they were 'accepting' NAMBLA's position.

 

Go study pedophilia TripleB, and then come back and say that they are still related.

Somewhat like rape, the pedophile wants/needs a compliant 'victim' to have sex with hence children. It's often the same with 'plushies' who need a complient object with which to gain sexual pleasure.

Honestly, the two aren't related. To think they are and then to look at the predominant number of pedophiles who despite their liking of boy children would still be considered to be hetrosexual in their relations with people their own age.

Kithera

 

Bubba, your double-talk does nothing to help your argument.

At any rate, the case of Jesse Dirkhising should give us serious pause about letting homosexual couples adopt.

Why? Why? Why?

Like I said, WHY!?! Why should Jesse Dirkhising give us any pause regarding HOMOSEXUALS?!?!?!?!?!?

Please explain it. Like I said, your logic is bigoted and yes, even if you don't realize it, you are basically branding the entire gay community by suggesting that Jesse is indicative of the gay community. Like the part of the post you conveniently ignored, HITLER was a hetero, MANSON was a hetero OSAMA is a hetero, heterosexuals abuse and murder and rape their children PLENTY!?!?!

So why, if you are NOT bigoted or biased against gays because of your beliefs, would you come to the conclusion that a sick man's actions means that homosexuals should be scrutinzed? Why is it the gay and lesbian community you associated with this act of depravity?

As for your future gay son, you clearly have an anti-homosexuality agenda, and I'll take your word that you don't have an anti-homosexual person agenda. I just thought it would be interesting for you to argue these issues with someone you love.

 

After all, what's more important? Avoiding the appearance of bigotry and political incorrectness or THE WELFARE OF THE CHILD?

OK, but Bubba, no matter how many times you capitalize it, the welfare of the child is not in any more jeopardy in being adopted by a gay couple than a straight one. the evidence is resounding on that one.

 

TripleB, if you are going to make statements that gays are much more likely to engage in pedophilia, you need to back it up with evidence.

Agree with dizfactor, who brings up an interesting point:

Safe in a gay household, or emotionally traumatized in a straight one?

Which is more beneficial to children? I would go for the stability, myself, gay or not.

But that's just me.

Peace,

V-03

 

Your not going to change people minds if they feel something is so gross that it gives them the "shivers". That is free choice too.

BlueJedi: You do have the free choice to be disgusted by homosexuality, "Fear Factor", or whatever you choose to be disgusted by.

However, the United States should not base its laws on what disgusts you, me, or anyone else.

I find mayonnaise disgusting--when I was younger, I couldn't be in the same room with an open jar of it without gagging. Should eating mayonnaise be illegal? Should people who like mayonnaise not be allowed to adopt children?

I also find Britney Spears and J-Lo disgusting--should we legislate that people who listen to these two singers not be allowed to adopt children? Should their music be illegal?

Now, on to "immorality". Staunch Catholics find using birth control to be immoral. Should birth control then be illegal? Many people find divorce immoral. Should it be illegal? Jews and Muslims find eating pork immoral. Should we put the pork industry out of business?

Bubba:

Like I said, WHY!?! Why should Jesse Dirkhising give us any pause regarding HOMOSEXUALS?!?!?!?!?!?

Please explain it. Like I said, your logic is bigoted and yes, even if you don't realize it, you are basically branding the entire gay community by suggesting that Jesse is indicative of the gay community. Like the part of the post you conveniently ignored, HITLER was a hetero, MANSON was a hetero OSAMA is a hetero, heterosexuals abuse and murder and rape their children PLENTY!?!?!

OWM has a point here. When you're discussing Jesse Dirkhising, what we need to analyze is whether or not people should be given an ***hole Test before being allowed to adopt, not whether or not people are gay.

If we make a law that says homosexual couples can adopt, but ***holes can't, then we'll solve the problem you listed above, and we'll also solve the problem of heterosexual child abusers adopting children--which I believe is a much greater problem.

Vaderize:

Safe in a gay household, or emotionally traumatized in a straight one?

Which is more beneficial to children? I would go for the stability, myself, gay or not.

Amen. I have taught children raised by gay couples and there was nothing wrong with them, and I have taught messed-up children raised by straight couples. The parents' sexuality seemed to make no difference.

 

However, the United States should not base its laws on what disgusts you, me, or anyone else.

I find mayonnaise disgusting--when I was younger, I couldn't be in the same room with an open jar of it without gagging. Should eating mayonnaise be illegal? Should people who like mayonnaise not be allowed to adopt children?

I also find Britney Spears and J-Lo disgusting--should we legislate that people who listen to these two singers not be allowed to adopt children? Should their music be illegal?

Now, on to "immorality". Staunch Catholics find using birth control to be immoral. Should birth control then be illegal? Many people find divorce immoral. Should it be illegal? Jews and Muslims find eating pork immoral. Should we put the pork industry out of business?

ahh, but you see, Bubba's a white, Christian, heterosexual male. historically, in America, when people who aren't white, Christian, heterosexual, or male find something disgusting, it's a "weird cultural quirk" with no deeper significance, but when white, Christian, heterosexual males find something disgusting, it's treated as something that's objectively disgusting/immoral/dangerous/wrong/etc.

it's one of the big benefits of being part of the dominant group in a society: the culture you control bends over backwards to enshrine your every preference and peccadillo into law, and that eventually leaks over into science, the arts, etc. it's a function of privelege, and it helps perpetuate, extend, and reify the control of the priveleged.

unfortunately for Bubba, and fortunately for the rest of us, we have been working on slowly eroding white, Christian, heterosexual male privelege for a while in this country, which means that many of those irrational, arbitrary beliefs are being challenged and re-examined.

understandably to some extent, those who are losing priveleges are whining and throwing a hissy fit about it, and generally making idle "Chicken Little" threats about the impending collapse of civilization, but what they fail to recognize is that it's not civilization that's collapsing, it's the dominance of this one particular culture. we can understand that it's hard to tell the difference between your corner of the world and the world as a whole sometimes, and now, much like children who have trouble visualizing the world outside their home, they have trouble imagining what a civilization not dominated so completely by themselves would even look like and how such a thing could possibly function, but fortunately we are more than happy to demonstrate.

 

Yeah, people forget that Democracy =/= mob rule, that the constitution is intended to protect the rights of all, but especially the tyranny of the minority by the majority.

 

I also find Britney Spears and J-Lo disgusting--should we legislate that people who listen to these two singers not be allowed to adopt children?

I wouldn't go that far.

Should their music be illegal?

Absolutely!

 

unfortunately for Bubba, and fortunately for the rest of us, we have been working on slowly eroding white, Christian, heterosexual male privelege for a while in this country, which means that many of those irrational, arbitrary beliefs are being challenged and re-examined.

Care to indulge me on what you consider irrational and arbitrary? I'm rather interested in this subject, and perhaps can lend a bit of a perspective that hasn't really been addressed yet here.

 

Actually, diz, to be fair to Bubba, it wasn't him making the statements about homosexuality being "disgusting"--it was BlueJedi.

historically, in America, when people who aren't white, Christian, heterosexual, or male find something disgusting, it's a "weird cultural quirk" with no deeper significance, but when white, Christian, heterosexual males find something disgusting, it's treated as something that's objectively disgusting/immoral/dangerous/wrong/etc.

understandably to some extent, those who are losing priveleges are whining and throwing a hissy fit about it, and generally making idle "Chicken Little" threats about the impending collapse of civilization, but what they fail to recognize is that it's not civilization that's collapsing, it's the dominance of this one particular culture

I definitely agree with you there.

 

Let's avoid labelling anyone, especially other users, by such things as race, gender, religious beliefs, or other factors. It's not going to make this discussion go well.

Let's stick to the issue, and not other users.

Kimball Kinnison

 

Kimball, I do apologize if you meant my comments, but I am particularly offended by that particular analogy. Would you be ok with someone saying "well, because these morman parents beat and abused their adopted child, we should have serious pause about considering whether to let Mormon's adopt. We should be putting children's welfare above the hurt feelings of Mormon's."

Would that be cool? How is the initial analogy NOT labeling gays?

 

KK
Let's avoid labelling anyone, especially other users, by such things as race, gender, religious beliefs, or other factors. It's not going to make this discussion go well.

Let's stick to the issue, and not other users.

Actually, I believe that diz's post is very relevant to the topic at hand.

I think the one of the points of this discussion is to find out why people feel that homosexuality is wrong, and talking about gay rights and whatnot, and I believe his post clearly defines why many are opposed.




b4k4^2

 

Vaderize said

TripleB, if you are going to make statements that gays are much more likely to engage in pedophilia, you need to back it up with evidence.

I NEVER said that, go back and look.

I actually have no problem with gay couples being allowed to adopt and think they absolutely deserve to adopt their 'partners' children.

 

Branthoris:

Bubba_the_Genius, you are, to begin with, correct in saying that to take one anecdote concerning a gay person who tried to change and failed, and then to conclude that all homosexuality is choice-independent, is a logical fallacy. However, every single gay person I have ever come across maintains that it is not a matter of choice, but something inherent. Unless there are actually examples of people who tried to change their sexuality and succeeded in that endeavour, then the balance of probabilities is vastly against the view that it is possible. Or to put it another way, it seems clear that if 'reorientation' can happen at all, it can only happen in such a tiny proportion of cases as to make it useless in informing moral, legal, or social judgements about homosexuality.

I think it's a leap to go from "very few have changed their orientation" to "very few could." It may not be the case that changing one's orientation can only happen in a small subset of the population; it may simply be that change is not impossible for most, only very difficult.

And, the difficulty might not be inherent in orientation, but part of our culture. Yes, in many sectors, homosexuality is stigmatized. But it may be true that even in those sectors, sexual liberation and experimentation is very highly prized.


The previous part of your post, I ought to point out, contains not one logical fallacy, but two. We have a general conclusion based on what really is just one anecdote--that gay couples are more likely to abuse children than straight couples (of course there are cases of homosexuals who abuse children, but there are also thousands of cases of heterosexuals who abuse children, so your point about that story fails completely). And we also have a 'false cause'--the assumption that the abuse had anything to do with homosexuality, or that gayness/straightness has any bearing upon likelihood to abuse children at all.

In both cases, you assume too much. I don't assert that gay couples are more likely to abuse children, nor do I assert any sort of correlation between sexual orientation and child abuse.

I'm just saying that we shouldn't let political correctness blind us to the possibilities, and we shouldn't let the self-esteem of grown-ups trump the welfare of the child.


This dovetails nicely with dizfactor's post.

"After all, what's more important? Avoiding the appearance of bigotry and political incorrectness or THE WELFARE OF THE CHILD?"

OK, but Bubba, no matter how many times you capitalize it, the welfare of the child is not in any more jeopardy in being adopted by a gay couple than a straight one. the evidence is resounding on that one.

I ask this sincerely: what evidence? If you can provide substantial evidence backing up your assertion, great. It just seems to me that many of y'all act as if the assertion is self-evidently true.


(As per Kimball's request, I will not address diz's other post.)


Now, McCartney.

Bubba, your double-talk does nothing to help your argument.

"At any rate, the case of Jesse Dirkhising should give us serious pause about letting homosexual couples adopt."

Why? Why? Why?

Like I said, WHY!?! Why should Jesse Dirkhising give us any pause regarding HOMOSEXUALS?!?!?!?!?!?

Let me spell it out for you, first by reviewing the passage I quoted.

Who is Jesse Dirkhising? Well, you wouldn't know it from the press, but he was a thirteen-year-old Arkansas boy who was horribly raped and tortured over a two-day period [in late 1999]. He was tied up by two homosexual "lovers" who stuffed Jesse's mouth with his own underwear, wrapped the gag with duct tape, tied him to the bed, and then repeatedly sodomized him in various ways. The boy eventually died from asphyxiation while the murderers were making a sandwich in the kitchen. [link]

The article asserts that the two murderers were lo

 

Anakin_Girl

You tried to minimize and water down my point by making comparisons that don't relate at the same level of importance.

Re: Families Men & Women are the very basis for the family unit. Messing with that changes the very fabric of society.

And if things keep going the way the are going, the cost to governments could be huge, as same sex marriages become legal with all the perks.

Do I have the right to say thats not where I want my tax dollars spent?

Thus we have issue's with one group of people's free choice and there rights (gays) infringing on another group of people's free choice and there rights.

Or maybe people who don't agree with homosexuality don't get rights anymore because "they are just not with it" living in the dark ages, of modern thinking patterns.

 

I ask this sincerely: what evidence? If you can provide substantial evidence backing up your assertion, great. It just seems to me that many of y'all act as if the assertion is self-evidently true.

to quote the American Psychiatric Association:

"Research over the past 30 years has consistently demonstrated that children raised by gay or lesbian parents exhibit the same level of emotional, cognitive, social and sexual functioning as children raised by heterosexual parents."

to quote the American Academy of Pediatrics:

"A growing body of scientific literature demonstrates that children who grow up with 1 or 2 gay and/or lesbian parents fare as well in emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as do children whose parents are heterosexual. Children?s optimal development seems to be influenced more by the nature of the relationships and interactions within the family unit than by the particular structural form it takes."

to quote the American Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatrists:

"There is no evidence to suggest or support that parents with a gay, lesbian, or bisexual orientation are per se different from or deficient in parenting skills, child-centered concerns and parent-child attachments, when compared to parents with a heterosexual orientation. It has long been established that a homosexual orientation is not related to psychopathology, and there is no basis on which to assume that a parental homosexual orientation will increase likelihood of or induce a homosexual orientation in the child.

Outcome studies of children raised by parents with a homosexual or bisexual orientation, when compared to heterosexual parents, show no greater degree of instability in the parental relationship or developmental dysfunction in children."

and finally from an Oct 2002 article on the American Association of Family Physicians:

SAN DIEGO -- The American Academy of Family Physicians governing body, the Congress of Delegates, adopted a new policy today that advocates for children. The delegates called for the Academy to "establish policy and be supportive of legislation which promotes a safe and nurturing environment, including psychological and legal security, for all children, including those of adoptive parents, regardless of the parents' sexual orientation."

But let's say there's a legitimate heterosexual counter-example to the Dirkhising case: a heterosexual couple that kidnapped, raped, and killed a child. Do I think that couple should give us pause?

YES, I DO. In this way, I am unbiased.

no, you're not, because you wouldn't argue that such an example would call into question the wisdom of allowing heterosexuals in general to raise children, whereas you're using the Dirkhising case to argue exactly that with regard to gay couples.

Re: Families Men & Women are the very basis for the family unit. Messing with that changes the very fabric of society.

to quote the American Antropological Association:

"The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution...Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies."

a member of the association's executive board went on to state that President Bush's assertion that "The union of a man and a woman is the most enduring human institution, honored and encouraged in all cultures and by every religious faith" is "patently false," going on to point out that "If he were to take even the first semester of anthropology, he would know that's not true."

 

Could the two men have pretended to be a homosexual couple and adopted a victime?

Could the two men in fact have been a man and a woman, rendering your entire veiled gay-bashing argument completely logically fallacious?

Of course.

/Z